Mark Hogancamp is brutally attacked on the way home from a bar by five thugs, who leave him for dead. He suffers massive brain trauma and slips into a coma. When Mark eventually regains consciousness, all memory of his adult life has been erased. Mark decides to heal himself by building a miniature Second World War village called Marwen populated with dolls that look like the people in his life. His five attackers are portrayed as vicious Nazi officers.

Inspired by a remarkable true story, which was sensitively captured in the 2010 documentary Marwencol, director Robert Zemeckis's heart-warming yarn of self-rediscovery fails to connect on any emotional level. In his previous work including Back To The Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump, the Oscar-winning film-maker demonstrated a flair for plucking heartstrings while he engineers fantastical adventures on a grand scale. If life is like a box of chocolates then, disappointingly, Welcome To Marwen serves up a handsomely packaged selection of bland hard centres, which are impossible to swallow without choking...

A surfeit of flashy digital trickery, which magically brings to life an adult man's toy box of lifelike plastic dolls, overwhelms character development and hampers dramatic momentum. The misfiring script co-written by Caroline Thompson unspools in real and imagined worlds, the latter providing a safe space where the victim of a horrific attack can piece together fragments of his shattered psyche. Tears should flow freely, especially with Steve Carell cast in the anguished lead role, but there is barely a trickle of saltwater during two disjointed and curiously underwhelming hours.

In order to rebuild his life, he constructs a miniature Second World War village called Marwen in his backyard, which is populated with dolls that look uncannily like friends and neighbours. The five attackers are portrayed as vicious Nazi officers while Mark adopts the guise of a swaggering American GI not dissimilar to Action Man. Barbie-esque inhabitants of Marwen are reflections of real-life pals Roberta (Merritt Weaver) and Caralala (Eiza Gonzalez), soldier Julie, Russian carer Anna (Gwendoline Christie), adult film actress Suzette (Leslie Zemeckis) and newly arrived neighbour Nicol (Leslie Mann). Mark re-enacts murky episodes from his past in the hand-made village so he can face the unrepentant attackers in court and confront his demons, which manifest as a flying witch called Deja (Diane Kruger).

Welcome To Marwen is as hollow and plastic as the figurines, which become imaginary confidantes to Mark and shepherd him along the treacherous path to recovery. The script lacks an obvious emotional crescendo - even the pivotal courtroom showdown is overrun with special effects and pyrotechnics. Carell's talents as a dramatic actor are largely untapped and gossamer-thin romantic subplots become an unsightly and unedifying tangle.